Duplicate External links in Project 2003 Standard

[project-guy]

Our program operates in an environment where we have 4 Project files with
links between them. In addition, we have 2 Consolidated files, 1 for every 2
of the Project files. All of these files are stored in a common folder on
the network.

When we display the external links, we see as many as 8 links to any one of
internal task in a Project file. When you examine the predecessor or
succesor fields in the split screen, we see that half of the links are
duplicated exactly. The other half of the links refer to external links
which do not exist ( the task ID's differ by 1 ID number from the actual task
number in the external Project file.

In one of my files, I had upwards of 100 external links defined ( links I
wanted to include). These have translated to 600-800 external tasks in my
project file, certainly contributing to a file size issue, not to mention the
possibility of incorrect transfer of dates to the dependant internal tasks
(dependancy dates also may differ on the duplicates).

Does anyone have any explanation for this and do you have a cure to
eliminate the invalid duplicate external links? i havre searched the
Discussion Group and did not find any one mentioning this type of issue
before.

 

[John]

Our program operates in an environment where we have 4 Project files with
links between them. In addition, we have 2 Consolidated files, 1 for every 2
of the Project files. All of these files are stored in a common folder on
the network.

When we display the external links, we see as many as 8 links to any one of
internal task in a Project file. When you examine the predecessor or
succesor fields in the split screen, we see that half of the links are
duplicated exactly. The other half of the links refer to external links
which do not exist ( the task ID's differ by 1 ID number from the actual task
number in the external Project file.

In one of my files, I had upwards of 100 external links defined ( links I
wanted to include). These have translated to 600-800 external tasks in my
project file, certainly contributing to a file size issue, not to mention the
possibility of incorrect transfer of dates to the dependant internal tasks
(dependancy dates also may differ on the duplicates).

Does anyone have any explanation for this and do you have a cure to
eliminate the invalid duplicate external links? i havre searched the
Discussion Group and did not find any one mentioning this type of issue
before.

project-guy,
To be honest, it sounds like you have a real mess on your hands and very
likely some corruption. Painful as it may be, I suggest you use two
spare text fields to "capture" the inter-file links. For example, use
Text1 for the link source data and Text2 for the destination data. (Just
reviewing this data may help ferret out redundant or undesired link
points.) Then break all external links in all four files using the
"break link" button on Tools/Links Between Projects window. After that I
would attempt to purge corruption from each of the four files (see FAQ
43 - File Bloat? Might be corruption, on our MVP website at:
http://project.mvps.org/faqs.htm)

Once the files are "clean", create one new master file with all four
subprojects inserted (filtering can be used to limit view if desired).
Then using the stored link information, re-establish external links
between the files. This process can be automated with VBA if desired but
if VBA is not in your arsenal of talents, the link icon on the standard
toolbar can help with a manual approach.

In my opinion, attempting to clean up the exiting links will take more
time than using the above process. Further, the process outlined here
will clean up the links, eliminate one extra master file, and streamline
the file size.

John
Project MVP